Popcorn Panel: Side Effects is a bitter thrill to follow

Side Effects, reviewed by our Popcorn Panel

Everyone knows it’s rude to talk during a movie, but once the credits roll, you’re bound to have an opinion that needs, nay demands, sharing. Every other week in Post Movies experts, artists and movie buffs dissect a recent release. It’s fun. It’s healthier than nachos. It’s the Popcorn Panel.

This week’s panel

Alison Broverman only occasionally gets depressed about the movies she watches for the Popcorn Panel.

Chris Knight is the National Post‘s unmedicated chief film critic.

Wende Wood is a board-certified psychiatric pharmacist.

This week’s film:Side Effects

Alison I wish the second half of Side Effects paid off how good the first half was. Director Steven Soderbergh builds a cool tension right from the start with that chilling opening shot of a blood-stained apartment, and the delicate pile-up of Emily Taylor’s (Rooney Mara) overwhelming sadness when her husband (Channing Tatum) returns from the hospital. Mara is excellent as the fragile Emily, and Jude Law is appealing as her overworked but earnest psychiatrist. And the prospect of sleep-killing partly caused by an anti-depressant is genuinely frightening, and for a minute it looks like Soderbergh is going to explore that narrative potential. But then the big twist comes … and it’s so ridiculous and offensive that I actually guffawed in the middle of the theatre.

Chris This did seem like one of those movies where the payoff could never hope to match the promise, but give Soderbergh this — at least the film, once it swerved into a new direction, stayed true to that direction. I want to be careful not to say too much — even the trailers have been carefully constructed not to give things away, which is almost worth a conversation itself. And I enjoyed the multi-faceted characters. Take Jude Law, who’s a money-grubbing shill for big pharma and a decent, caring guy who also happens to speak French. They should have called him Dr. Nuance.

Wende I must admit that my initial reaction to the film was “meh.” The first half was fairly engaging and seemed to be headed in an interesting direction, but the second half was predictable and silly, even borderline offensive. The murder scene ending with a focus in on the pill bottle? Puh-lease. The big pharma content was for the most part surprisingly accurate, though heavily one-sided and somewhat facile. I thought there might be more courtroom drama where both sides of the medication debate could be explored. The performances, especially by Mara, were quite good — I thought her portrayal of depression/anxiety was quite accurate. But I still left feeling like I’d seen much of this in thrillers before.

Alison Throughout Side Effects I kept thinking how much more fun it would be if Jake Gyllenhaal’s manically charming Pfizer sales rep from Love and Other Drugs would just show up and seduce Rooney Mara, thus permanently ending her depression.

Chris I’ve been wracking my brains trying to remember other films I’ve seen involving big pharma, and only two recent ones spring to mind. Harrison Ford played a cranky medical researcher in 2010’s Extraordinary Measures, about a guy trying to find (and fund) a cure for his kids’ rare disease. The same year brought Love and Other Drugs, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway starring in a romantic-comedy-medical-drama that managed to comment on pushy corporate drug representatives, the money to be made in the anti-depressant market, and even the need for U.S. seniors to make bus trips to Canada to load up on cheap pharmaceuticals. It was almost busier than Side Effects!

It felt like Soderbergh wanted to go after big pharma … but halfway through the movie he chickened out

Wende I felt the portrayal of the pharmaceutical industry was more realistic than in some other films where they are shown as evil incarnate. Side Effects basically portrays them simply as an industry out to make money. They could have shown representatives from the Ablixa company defending their drug in court, or doing shady dealings or criminal acts to cover up the alleged side effects but did not. I imagine there also would have been a civil trial about the role of the Ablixa, but again, Soderbergh didn’t follow that narrative.

I was impressed that all mentions of real medications (i.e. not Ablixa) were accurate and even pronounced correctly. This should be a given but isn’t always the case. Most of the pharmaceutical industry interactions were fairly accurate, though one sided. For example, why is it such a scandal that Jude Law’s psychiatrist character is getting paid to run a clinical trial of a medication? Most people get paid to do work, so why is this any different? Should he share his expertise and professional experience for free? The comments about trips to Hawaii are a bit US specific and dated, as Canada has always had a stricter code of conduct and the US has tightened theirs up substantially in the past couple of years. Drug company lunches and dinners with physicians do definitely happen as shown in the film.

Alison It felt like Soderbergh wanted to go after big pharma (a pretty easy target), and I was hoping for a bit of commentary on the overmedication of America, but halfway through the movie he chickened out. I did enjoy Law in this film, especially once he started getting paranoid and going crazy. I just wish the film had drawn out the tension between his paranoia and the truth for longer. It would have been a way more interesting film if he turned out to be wrong.

The evidence-based reality is that depression and anxiety are vastly under-recognized and under-treated

Chris I think we’re all dancing around the notion that Soderbergh bit off more than he could chew. But I’d argue that, had he focused more closely on either the big pharma takedown or the courtroom drama or the sexual thriller or the Jude-Law-going-crazy-ness, he might have made a more coherent film — but it would have been just like a lot of other films. For all its flaws, Side Effects stands alone; there’s nothing else quite like it. Given the number of movies I see, that’s worth a lot to me.

Wende Alison, I was actually hoping there wouldn’t be a commentary on overmedication of America, as it would likely have contradicted my professional experience and perpetuated common myth. While there may be plenty of anecdotes such as the people in the movie who speak about their antidepressant use for non-necessary indications, the evidence-based reality is that depression and anxiety are vastly under-recognized and under-treated. That treatment doesn’t necessarily have to mean antidepressants, but sometimes it does. Chris, interesting conclusion but I still would have preferred a more coherent film.